


Put Me Back Together

by RhetoricFemme



Series: Scenic World AU [7]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Gen, Scenic World AU, adoption struggles, fun family fluff, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 17:58:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15345369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhetoricFemme/pseuds/RhetoricFemme
Summary: Susan Kirschstein reflects on various points in life after catching her boys in a moment of unadulterated dorkery.





	Put Me Back Together

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there. I'm still actively working on Scenic World. The main story, as well as little sideshots and things that press themselves upon me. I hope you enjoy reading this world-building piece as much as I enjoyed writing it!

If Susan Kirschstein has figured out anything throughout the years, it’s that life comes with a wicked learning curve.

It’s sharper at some points than others, and though she’s felt the sting at various times, Susan has always come out ahead of the aftermath. Takes note of the difference in feeling between resting periods and balancing the curve, be it akin to a finely serrated edge or the jagged leftovers of violently broken glass.

The blowback she’d received the first few months after verbally opposing her family’s politics. Fearlessly defending her positions at college, because nothing could be more challenging than successfully articulating herself to a barrage of old guard conservatives, and not only coming out on the other side, but coming out while remaining loved and embraced.

Then there’d been finding out what it’s like to crush on a campus boy who insists on challenging her causes from amid the branches of a fucking tree.

_“It’s not a bad idea you have there.” He’d called down, amused. A wide, lazy smile with a mop of mouse brown hair and lanky limbs. “But tell me why.”_

_“That tree isn’t tall enough for your ego. Come talk to me at my table, else I don’t owe you a damn thing.”_

Realizing that same boy—who goes by Jakob—not only means well, but is obnoxiously curious, and a bit cut-throat where his own ambitions are concerned. And then falling in love with him.

She’s simply grateful for the breathing space she’s blessed with between rounds. No matter how small.

All of that pales in comparison to the touch-and-go nerves that accompany becoming a parent.

The daunting task of not simply caring for such a small and precious person, but untangling the timeless mess that is parental facts versus misnomer. How to not test one another’s patience while figuring out this new version of partnership. Finding out there will be years of well-meaning IOUs for the perpetual give-and-take.

Realizing only in retrospect that the precious habits their baby has taken to will one day become a thing of the past. At least his stubborn ways and bottomless heart will certainly see this little boy through his lifetime.

It’s when Susan’s second go at parenthood arrives, some twelve years later to not one, but two additional children, that she is all at once completely lost and entirely in charge of her world. It’s of little consequence that she couldn’t have been present for the first part of their lives; nor does Susan care that they happen to each be a full year older than her first-born.

“Jean was all new, and that was insane enough, Jakob! What the hell are we supposed to do now?!”

Strong, comforting hands rub from Susan’s shoulders to her elbows and back again. He stands still while this force of nature leans into his chest for refuge.

“What’d you say to me the other day?”

“’Fuck it, we’ll figure it out cause these boys are mine.’”

“Well, then. There you go.”

She says nothing, but thinks back on the last year-plus of dinnertime visits and overnights, unable to pinpoint when the sleepovers turned into quiet requests for them to stay the entire weekend. Not quite sure when she first heard Bertholt sobbing with night terrors, bolt upright in the trundle bed that tucks beneath Jean’s bedframe.

Jakob had beat her to the door as they’d rushed into the room to find Jean horrified, Reiner climbing into the bottom bunk with him and whispering that he’d _told_ him this might eventually happen, and all they could do was wait for it to be over.

“You’re off about one detail, though.” Jakob squeezes Susan’s shoulders and brings her back into the moment, whispers into her hair.

“What.”

“ _Our_ boys, Susan. They’re _ours._ ”

Almost two years after the boys had officially come home, more often than not, life was delightfully low key. Even if Susan was still waiting for the tension in Reiner’s shoulders to dissipate when he thought no one was looking. It was enough to see and feel that they were getting there.

So it was, in the minutes before the sun had fully come up on a weekday morning, that Susan could hear the conspiratorial whisper of her boys downstairs, standing by the front door.

“Where is it Bertl, lemme see it.” Jean’s voice was urgent and full of curiosity.

“Hang on.”

Susan inched toward the balustrade, listening as Bertholt’s backpack slipped to the floor, careful to stay out of sight while getting a look at whatever her boys were up to.

“Dad’s letting me drive us to school,” Reiner warned. “And I say we’re not leaving until we all have one on.”

“Quit pretending you’re a badass Reiner,” Bertholt spoke, preoccupied with lifting the hem of his navy blue sweater. “You’re just getting in the hours for your permit. _There._ ”

Underneath his sweater, Bertholt wore a lime green t-shirt, a band logo emblazoned across the chest.

“Yes!” Jean stood with his arms crossed, all smiles as Bertholt had made good on his promise. “Today is the first official Weezer Thursday!”

Likewise, Jean wore a ringer tee bearing the Weezer band logo, over a long-sleeve thermal.

Satisfied, Reiner loosened more of his button down to reveal his own band tee bearing two masked female superheroes across his chest. “Vintage.”

“I’m telling dad you called his shirt old.”

“N _ot at all_ what I said!”

Susan watched on in wondrous disbelief for another moment, before the three of them finally made their way out the front door. Pivoting on her heel, she headed for her own closet in search of what to wear for her own impending day of work.

Something she wouldn’t have to think too hard about, or spend half the day wanting to slip out of when she got home. It was true that having children of a certain age meant she could get away with more in terms of how she spent her time.

Still. That didn’t mean she had any intentions of spending more time than she deemed necessary fretting over menial things.

Looking out a bedroom window, Susan watched the driveway down below. Sitting in the passenger seat was her husband. Fast approaching twenty years after she’d dismissed him and his presumptuous attitude from the branches of a tree, she now smiled at him, watching while he passed one teenager a set of keys and the others bugged them from the backseat of the car.

Jakob had stopped climbing trees years ago, though Susan was glad his too-bold nature had remained. The same part of the man she once found annoying had time and again proven the same trait that so often pushed all of them through.

It was evident within the very moment, as Jean and Berhtolt made annoyed faces from the backseat while their father revealed his own Weezer shirt beneath his work clothes. Reiner, on the other hand, ignored them all. He was too busy perfecting a Y-turn in their driveway to pay attention to his brothers, much less the discreetly proud grin on his father’s face.


End file.
